The Collectability of Poole Built Graham Farish Locos

[DesertHound]

Is there a lot of Graham Farish N in S. Africa Silly Moo? I'll be in Cape Town end of the month, do you know any places to pick up second-hand stock there (shops?). How are the prices compared to the UK given the state of the Rand? I'm not in the UK that much either, so always on the lookout during my travels.

Dan

[silly moo]

Unfortunately there's not much in the way of model railways in SA, there are very few modellers, of those most model HO/OO. I would estimate N gauge is about 10% of the market.

Most N Gaugers here model American Outline. Our club has fifty members and only four or five have an British stock.

There is a shop in Johannesburg that has a bit of new Farish. I'm not sure about Cape Town. Anything new is very expensive.

Most of us buy online and those who are brave enough have their purchases sent by post. Other purchases are done on visits to the UK or the States. Visiting relatives and business colleagues are roped in to bring items in.

In over twenty years I can only think of four or five times that I have ever come across Farish at a swapmeet.

I hope you prove me wrong and find a big collection of Farish in Cape Town but the odds are against it.

Veronica.

[B757-236GT]

To a certain extent though second hand N gauge in the UK is pretty few and far between, most shows have a few bits which due to the price has been round the track more times than a greyhound! Weve got one dealer down this way, Brian James Models but he only does a few toyfairs now but hes normally good on price but its just dribs and drabs now with some very wildly optomistic pricing to go with it! Ive seen old farish models that sell on ebay for £30 have £60-£70 price tickets! Needless to say when it does come up such as at TINGS if its good its normally gone by lunchtime. In fact at Tings last year the Mk2 TSOs sold out before the show opened to the public, i think CMC could have sold 100 or so given everyone seemed to ask for them! Strangley though i saw one sell for only £26 on ebay the other night, i was very very suprised!

Richard

[NeMo]

Weve got one dealer down this way, Brian James Models but he only does a few toyfairs now but hes normally good on price but its just dribs and drabs now with some very wildly optomistic pricing to go with it! Ive seen old farish models that sell on ebay for £30 have £60-£70 price tickets!

This is my experience too. Last few months I've spent quite a bit on the Hattons secondhand website. Their prices seem, to me, pretty reasonable. Mind condition and recent Farish and Dapol wagons for £5-10 for example. So I might order £20-30 worth of stuff every couple of weeks. It's an inexpensive bit of retail therapy, and sometimes you land something nifty like a few Dapol Dogfish you just can't get anywhere else.

But when I visit the model railway shows I find the secondhand prices put me off very quickly. Really old Farish wagons for £10 or £12, Poole-era locomotives for over £50 and so on. Given you can get new stuff for much the same price (especially at shows!) and secondhand stuff for less online, I just don't see how this business model works. Perhaps there are people who prefer to buy this way?

Of course the flip side is that (perhaps) these secondhand traders are offering better prices to the sellers than the online retailers.

Cheers, NeMo

[B757-236GT]

I think half the problem is there isnt the supply, the internet has made it easier to sell models and i know of lots of people who got into the S/H game because there was good money to be made especially if they kept it low level and avoided the people from the tax office. Ive lost count how many farish panniers ive seen or old compartment coaches or Po wagons. I did notice in the tings thread thst someone said why do people go on saturday, i think half the reason is to actually be able to buy stuff, some of the reports i heard from those who went sunday said there were only scraps left!

Me personally i love the old models, easy to work and easy to do something with and now fairly cheap, i do a few detailing, respray jobs and then end up with a fleet thats personalised to me!

Richard

[railsquid]

I for one like the older models and given the price of some of them now it would be wrong not too. Ive seen fully working models go for less than £30 even £20 which for me is a clincher. In terms of collectability most arent worth much at all. However it seems the farish I/C HST still sells for £50+ so obviously not everyone's swapping to dapol ones.

Sorry for resurrecting this slightly older thread; I came across a Farish HST (InterCity Executive livery, model number 8126 IIRC, Poole-era producton) in a 2nd-hand shop here in Japan for about GBP 50 at current exchange rates... Much as I love to give British models abandoned in a far and distant country a loving new home (and use it as a bogeyman to frighten my Dapol HST into submission), for that money I could get something much nicer; the paint job was pretty primitive and the single MK3 coach empty on the inside except for a couple of thick roof support poles. So it stayed where it was.

[Dr Al]

Sorry for resurrecting this slightly older thread; I came across a Farish HST (InterCity Executive livery, model number 8126 IIRC, Poole-era producton) in a 2nd-hand shop here in Japan for about GBP 50 at current exchange rates... Much as I love to give British models abandoned in a far and distant country a loving new home (and use it as a bogeyman to frighten my Dapol HST into submission), for that money I could get something much nicer; the paint job was pretty primitive and the single MK3 coach empty on the inside except for a couple of thick roof support poles. So it stayed where it was.

The Farish HST is one of their really pretty old models now - it came out something like 1981 or 1982. So the design is ~32 years old now, and it shows.

Having said that, if it was one with white nylon gears and a 5 pole motor, that price is about right. You can fit coach interiors - BR Lines sell them. Next to the Dapol model though, it'll always look dated.

Cheers,
Alan